


End of Line

by blithesea



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Blow Jobs, Fantasizing, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, Seduction, Self-Denial, Sex Robots, Technophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:35:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 20,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5366729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithesea/pseuds/blithesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a cybernetic brothel, Detective Carisi finds something he did not expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Club

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wordhouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordhouse/gifts), [headbuttingbears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/headbuttingbears/gifts).



"So, have you seen this man before?" 

____

Carisi flipped on the holo they had gotten from the vic's wife the previous night and placed it on the shiny surface of the manager's desk.

____

The man squinted slightly at the projection. "He does not seem familiar. Did he show up on the building's FFR feed?"

____

Lee frowned. "No, but most of the johns seem to be wearing scramblers."

____

"An understandable precaution of our patrons, given the delicate nature of this trade," the manager replied. "And your background check must have told you that he is not a paying member as such, or you wouldn't be asking this question." He pushed the holo back towards Carisi. "I am afraid I can't help you, detectives."

____

"Really." Carisi exchanged a look with Lee. He couldn't read the manager's silky-smooth exterior. Admittedly, cops were never a welcome sight in establishments such as this one. They had been invited into the back office politely enough. And yet, Carisi couldn't shake the feeling that there was just a hint of recalcitrance in the way the manager looked at them both. Or maybe Lee's twitchiness was rubbing off on him. Lee hadn't been his partner for long, but it didn't take a genius to notice that the whole bot thing creeped her out something fierce. Carisi couldn't really blame her. "Well, what about your, uh. Employees."

____

The manager blinked at him. "Come again?"

____

Carisi leaned forward in his chair. "Maybe one of them recognizes the guy? How often do you, um, wipe their hard drives?"

____

The manager's eyes narrowed slightly, but the tone of his voice remained calm. "There is no need for that. Their cognizant memory buffer automatically overwrites after a full cycle of neuron input, approximately every 65 hours.” The manager paused, then went on. "However, the ability to serve regular customers being a key asset in a business such as this, extensive client profiles are stored in the long-term routines of the individual positronic matrix and mirrored in the mainframe database."

____

Finally, some good news.

____

"So they would remember him," Carisi replied, perking up slightly. "Can you give us access to the database?"

____

"Naturally." The manager shot him a cool glance. "As soon as you present me with a court order."

____

~~~

____

"Smug bastard," Lee grumbled on their way out. "You can't tell me he doesn't have something to hide."

____

"Maybe," Carisi agreed absentmindedly, checking his comm status. "Anyway, looks like it doesn't matter, Chavez got a lead on the brother-in-law. Guess we're gonna have to talk to the family again."

____

On their way to the elevators, Carisi looked around to get a feel for the place. Being a little curious was normal, right? It wasn't every day he got inside one of those high-end, membership-only places, and only a few of them actually had sex bots. Or cybernetic companions, as the manager had put it. Carisi had never seen one up close, but he had heard stories of the newer models. How they were supposed to be even better than the real thing. That seemed highly unlikely. But still. What if? Disappointingly enough, apart from the tasteful and probably expensive-as-hell furniture, there wasn't much to see beyond the reception area. But it was still early. Maybe everyone was still being fueled or charged or something?

____

A soft _ding_ signaled the elevator's arrival. Carisi shifted to the side to let the passengers out, a group of well-dressed people. Only when Lee nudged him in the ribs did Carisi realize who they were, or rather, _what_ , and then he couldn't stop staring at them. His mother would have chided him something fierce, staring was not _polite_ , but would they even care? None of them spoke a word, they just filed out of the elevator carriage, a flock of unnaturally good-looking individuals, heels clicking on the tiles. It was amazing, they looked so real! Except maybe for the fact that their skin was too perfect. Even with sonic facials and chemical stimulation, humans still had pores. Shaking his head slightly, Carisi turned to go into the elevator, and nearly collided with one of them.

____

"Excuse me," the man said politely.

____

Carisi gaped.

____

Barba.

____

Lee was coming up behind him and Carisi stepped back, nearly onto her toes. An awkward dance and shuffle ensued, and just seconds later the elevator doors slid closed.

____

Carisi swallowed, his throat suddenly tight and dry, and turned to Lee. "Fuck, did you see that?"

____

Frowning, Lee nodded. "Yeah. Uncanny."

____

Thank god! He wasn't imagining things. Carisi took a deep breath. "I know! I mean... What the hell?"

____

"Used to be you could tell a bot just from looking at it," Lee continued. "The leathery skin and the empty eyes, and all that? With those, I wouldn't have guessed, not even suspected. Creepy."

____

Carisi's eyes bulged, and he only barely managed not to start flailing his arms. "You mean you didn't notice? That guy!"

____

"Guy?" Lee frowned again. "You mean the one at the end? Didn't really get a good look at him."

____

Neither had Carisi, all things considered; it had only been a split-second. Still. He knew that face.

____

"Why?"

____

"I thought he looked like..." he said, running his fingers through his hair. Jiminy Cricket on a pogo stick! Maybe he had just imagined it? Lee hadn't seen a thing, but Lee probably didn't know Barba other than from the news. Hadn't worked with Barba for years. Lee might not even recognize Barba if he sat down next to her in the mess hall.

____

"Like who?" Lee asked, but the elevator had reached ground level, and Carisi didn't dare say it, not here on the street, where anything could be overheard.

____

He ducked his head. "He looked like... Almost like a real person. Someone I know." It sounded ludicrous, even as he said it out loud.

____

"You only saw him for a second," Lee replied, shaking her head. "Or maybe he wasn't one of _them_? Know what I mean? Maybe it was actually that person, going to that place for a bit of afternoon delight."

____

Carisi shook his head. He had no words to convey the sheer mindbogglingly impossibility of that suggestion. He was interrupted by Base calling them on their comms, and during their trip back to the precinct he was glad for the autopilot in their car for once. Carisi might well have driven them off the road, the way his mind was still reeling. Could he have imagined it? Did that bot really look like Barba? No way, how was that even possible? There must be at least 100 laws prohibiting real people being imitated by cybernetics. But still, that had looked like Barba, Carisi would swear on his grandmother's grave. There was only one thing for it.

____

He had to go back and check.

____


	2. Technicalities

"Good evening. How may I help you?"

If the receptionist remembered him from earlier, she didn't let on. Carisi gave her a warm smile and leaned on her counter. "Hi. I'm interested in becoming a member."

"Naturally, sir. May I take down your IS?"

Carisi handed her the chip with his individual signifier and watched her plug it into a free slot on her data port. A holo screen lit up, rows and rows of metadata flipping by, large parts of it appeared scrambled out. That was one advantage of being a cop; the amount of information that a simple commercial data port like this could read from the IS was strictly limited. They wouldn't get much more than his payment details, date of birth and address. Carisi watched the receptionist closely to see if she realized this meant he was in the Service. Her face remained blank and professional when she looked back up at him, though. Maybe they had more customers like that than he'd thought.

"I'm sorry, sir. Your credit balance is insufficient."

"Oh." Carisi blinked. That wasn't going according to plan. The plan had been to waltz into the place, pretend to be a potential patron, flip through their catalog of electronic toys, realize that he had actually just mistaken sex bot #123 for Barba, get a late beer at O'Malley's and laugh at himself for being so silly. He hadn't really expected any obstacles this early in. His credit line wasn't even in the red this month, he was fairly sure.

"Right. What-- Is there some kind of, I don't know. Temporary membership? Day pass? A trial offer, or something?" He leaned in closer and gave her his best pitiful look. "I mean, there's gotta be a way we can work around this..."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm not at liberty to make those decisions." The receptionist looked at him, her face open and friendly and without even a trace of compassion. Which made him wonder whether she wasn't a bit electronic herself. Usually he had an automatic in with receptionists. They couldn't resist the Carisi charm. Then again, the brothel proprietors probably wouldn't waste a perfectly good bot behind a desk.

"Would you like to speak to the manager?"

Carisi hesitated, remembering how distinctly unhelpful the man had been earlier. Still, what other options were there? He could come back during the daytime, pretend it had to do with the case Lee and he were investigating. That case had taken them in a completely different direction, though. If word got back to his lieutenant, any bullshit story would come around to bite him in the ass. He didn't need another dressing-down this year.

Or he could forget about it all. Ha. That wasn't very likely, the way that thought of the Barba look-alike had been distracting him all day long. He needed to get this out of his brain, and fast.

"Yes, I would, thank you very much," he replied.

"Detective Carisi." The manager looked up from flipping through something on his data pad and switched off the display before Carisi could even get the tiniest glimpse of the contents. If he was surprised to see Carisi, he hid it well. "Back so soon?"

"Yeah, well," Carisi said, scratching the back of his head. "I'm not here on business. Um, I mean, in an official capacity."

The manager's eyebrows rose just the fraction of an inch. "I see." He gestured towards the chair opposite his desk. "Please have a seat."

Carisi settled down, and did his best to appear unfazed by the manager's guarded gaze. Was the man always this unwelcoming, or was it just because he knew Carisi was a cop? Maybe he could turn that to an advantage somehow.

"I'm gonna be honest with you," he started, "I've been a little curious since we looked into your, uh. Establishment. And I thought, well. You seemed to be very discreet about the whole thing. Which is something I appreciate."

The manager inclined his head slightly towards Carisi, and he decided to take that as encouragement.

"Well, as you can guess, I'm new to the whole... Cybernetic companionship thing. Your receptionist told me, I mean, looks like a full membership is a bit out of my ballpark, credit-wise. But I was wondering if you could make an exception, maybe..." He leaned back in his chair and let his hand settle on the NYPD comm badge at his hip, now idling since he was outside of working hours. An innocent enough gesture. "Maybe you could let me have a test run. Like a one-off deal?"

The manager regarded him closely, and Carisi did his best to look the part of a lonely, pathetic police officer. A bit past his prime, and decidedly horny and in need of some cyber-shenanigans. Sad to look at. Man, it had been ages since he'd gone undercover on a job. He missed it.

"I'm not asking for a freebie, or anything," Carisi interjected when the pause started to grow a bit too long.

The manager nodded slowly. "Of course not. That might put this establishment in trouble with the Service."

So maybe that was the hitch. The recent crackdown on police corruption and bribery hadn't just put a large portion of the Service under scrutiny. It had made a lot of business owners careful to draw inside the lines, as well, Carisi knew. He nodded, doing his best to ooze convivial understanding. "Well, exactly. I'm just thinking of a more, um, alternative payment plan. For a one-nighter. Something of that kind."

As before, the manager's expression remained carefully guarded. "Detective, I am not entirely sure we have what you are looking for."

Damn. Not lonely and pathetic enough? "I'm sure you do!" Carisi protested. "I mean, I have seen a couple of them this morning, and they looked amazing!"

The manager smiled thinly and shook his head, looking at Carisi like he was a kid asking for candy after bedtime. "That is not what I meant. This establishment's business model is aimed at clients looking for unique connections. Our main concern is each individual's gratification. Unfettered by convention, we provide the specifically-tailored stimuli they need and so well deserve." He made a dramatic pause.

Carisi waited politely, unsure where this sales pitch was going.

"As such, our clients enjoy the exclusive access rights to the cybernetic companion of their choice. And pay a substantial fee for the privilege. Just how substantial is a matter of negotiation, of course. But we do not offer _one-nighters_. You do not rent our companions by the _hour_."

Carisi groaned inwardly. This was getting much more complicated than he had anticipated. But still, what was the alternative? He couldn't turn back now. Besides, he knew that the mere possibility of a cybernetic companion looking like Barba existing in this place was not something he could just shrug off and forget. Just to be able to sleep at night, he had to see this through.

"Alright, I see where you're coming from," he conceded. "And still, I really hope we can work something out together. Maybe you could... I don't know, could you give me something like three days? To decide if I can commit to a full membership." He let his hand touch his badge again, and saw the manager follow the movement with his eyes. "I'd consider it a professional courtesy."

The manager remained silent for a moment. Carisi imagined he could feel the wheels turning behind his smooth forehead. Then he seemed to have come to a decision. He touched the shiny surface of his desk and a console started glowing underneath. One second later the receptionist came in.

"Please take Mr. Carisi with you for an initial information graft, and give him a temporary access code, level blue." The manager smiled thinly at Carisi. "Welcome to The Club."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to pick this up. After the first chapter I listened to my muses, who told me not to post any more before I had finished the whole thing. Now t'is done! And here we are.


	3. First impressions

"Not her. Nah. Not him, either."

The more holos of perfectly beautiful cybers the receptionist showed him, the more frustrated Carisi got. Not a hint of anything even remotely Barba-looking so far. Had he just imagined it after all?

"Don't you have anything more, um..." Carisi struggled to find an adjective that might adequately describe Barba.

The receptionist shot him an uneasy glance. It was a much better look on her than that icy front she had put on before. "But sir," she said plaintively, "these are your most likely choices of sexual partners. They were determined by the information graft--"

Carisi felt like slapping his forehead. Of course, that was what unprotected browsing in the wee hours of the night got you. The disturbing thing was, he hadn't done that kind of stuff in years. Hell's bells, those info grafters were thorough.

"Yeah, maybe," he said, shrugging it off. "But that's not what I want. I'm thinking of something more like..." He closed his eyes, conjuring up the image of Barba in his mind, when they had last seen each other. That had been what, six, seven years ago? Damn. "Say, not too tall... Dark hair. Big hazel eyes, no, green. Big nose. Cocky, but kinda charming."

When he opened his eyes again, the receptionist nodded at him. “I think we may have something that suits you, sir.”

He was ushered into a lavishly decorated room and asked to wait just a moment while the companion was prepared. And would he like a drink in the meantime? There was a bar by the window, if he wished to serve himself. Left alone, Carisi's glance lingered on the gleaming array of multicolored bottles and he considered them for a moment. Now that he was going to find out any second whether his mind had played tricks on him, he wouldn't have minded a beer or three to calm the nerves. But no, he wasn't there to relax, he was on a mission. Had to stay sharp, focused. Maybe just one to take the edge off?

"Hello."

Carisi nearly jumped with surprise and quickly turned around. The newcomer was standing near the entrance, looking at him, and there was no doubt about it, it hadn't just been in his mind. Barba.

He walked up to it, he needed a better look, this couldn't be real. Up close the resemblance turned into something else. This still looked like Barba, but like a younger version somehow. The skin fresh and glowing, the crinkles around his eyes just from laughing, not the deeper crags of age. The body slimmer, not a bit of gray in its hair. Hair that was slightly longer than he had ever seen Barba wear it, soft and silky, not even a hint of pomade in it, and it actually touched the collar of the expensive-looking shirt. The eyes, though. They were big and green, and every little bit as Sonny remembered them. They were looking at him, really looking. Not in an empty, robotic sort of way, either. If anything, Carisi would say that the thing looked almost amused.

"What is your name?" it asked, and Carisi's throat was suddenly dry. The voice, they had gotten the voice right as well. This was Barba's voice, a soft and relaxed timbre Carisi had rarely gotten to hear but recognized immediately. He swallowed, trying to regain his composure, but he couldn't take his eyes off the bot. It didn't seem to mind the lack of response.

"Would you like a drink?" it asked, nodding over at the bar. "You were fixing yourself something when I came in, I believe."

Carisi shook his head, his parched throat working painfully. He couldn't seem to form a clear thought. This was Barba's face, Barba's body, they had even kept the height. On a sex bot in a cybernetic brothel. How the fuck was that possible?

"You seem to have a lot on your mind," the bot said, no, _purred_ , in Barba's voice, with a sexy undertone that Carisi remembered, and which gave him a painful twang in his stomach. "Let me help you get more comfortable."

It took his hand. Actually took his hand, before he could protest or move out of the way. And it felt real and warm. Its own hand was big, with long, dexterous fingers, just like Barba's. Carisi stared down at it while the bot pulled him towards the gigantic bed, and quickly let go when the bot sat down. It leaned back on its elbows - Barba's elbows - and cocked an eyebrow at him. Oh god.

"We don't _have_ to do anything if you don't feel like it," it said, though its tone conveyed that to waste such an opportunity would be a damned shame. "I'm a very good listener."

"I..." Carisi's mind was drawing a blank, and the way the bot was looking at him, almost as if it was waiting for him to get undressed already, wasn't helping. Not one bit. "Bathroom?" he croaked around the obstruction in his throat, and then made a mad dash towards the door the bot was nodding at, locking it behind himself for good measure.

Fuck. He ran the cold water and held his hands underneath it, splashed some on his heated face. Just on the other side of that door was an electronic prostitute that looked like a young Barba. Waiting for him to take advantage. Offering everything. Up for anything. It felt as if someone had known the Sonny Carisi of ten years ago, the New Guy, so eager to prove himself, desperate to be accepted by the team and especially the ADA. As if someone had reached into that Sonny's head and plucked out this secret fantasy.

"Get a grip," Carisi muttered and glared at himself in the mirror. He wasn't that guy anymore.

He dried off and took a deep breath.

When he returned to the room, the bot was still on the bed, now sitting cross-legged. It had taken off shoes and socks, and rolled up the sleeves on the silky shirt. Carisi was relieved that it hadn't actually undressed in his absence, but in a way, seeing its bare feet seemed even more intimate. And the rolled-up sleeves reminded him of dozens of times he had seen Barba do the same thing. He cleared his throat and the bot looked up at him.

"Do you feel better now?"

Carisi nodded and, after a moment of hesitation, sat down on the bed as well. He made sure to leave a healthy distance between them. "So maybe now we can... Talk."

"Of course." The bot smiled. Its eyes never left Carisi's. It made him want to look away, but he was starting to have a hard time finding anywhere safe to let his own gaze rest. Certainly not on that face. Not lower, where the first few buttons of the silky shirt were undone to reveal a hint of chest hair. Not on the hands, or the bare forearms. Not on the sinfully tailored pants, and especially not anywhere near _that_ bulge. Jesus. It felt horribly wrong to let his eyes linger on any of it, like he had found an old holo of Barba, capturing a moment of youth and ease and flirtiness. No matter how good it looked, it hadn't been taken for him.

"So I see you are a police officer." The bot's voice yanked him back into the moment. "That must be very interesting."

Carisi dry-swallowed and nodded. It helped to be reminded of work. He would never feel flustered like this in an actual investigation. Time to get a hold of himself and get down to business. "Who made you?"

The bot didn't look surprised at the question, it didn't even miss a beat before answering. "I don't know." Slowly, like a lazy cat, it stretched out on the bed, and again Carisi couldn't help staring. "But they have done a pretty good job, don't you think?"

No doubt about that. Carisi licked his lips. "Why-- Do you know why you were made?"

"Yes. To give pleasure." The bot sounded perfectly innocent, but its eyes seemed to laugh at Carisi for not having figured out something that obvious.

"Do you have an individual signifier?"

That time there seemed to be a slight delay. Carisi had been looking for it, otherwise he might have missed the minute pause before the bot replied, "You can call me whatever you want."

Finally, a hook. Bots had to respond to direct questions, Carisi remembered as much from the cybernetic awareness seminars he had taken in the last few years. He tried again. "What is your individual signifier?"

The smile slowly faded from the bot's face. It looked vaguely apologetic. "That information is classified."

Carisi hesitated for a moment, considering. He could activate his official comm badge, and the bot would have to give up the IS, classified or not. But the moment he activated, the comm would start transmitting to the Service feed. Even worse, since he was off duty, the activation would be treated as high priority, and his location, the IS, the snapshots of his surroundings would go directly to Eval. That meant almost certain press alert. No matter what sort of thing had gone out of whack here, Barba wouldn't appreciate the fact that there was a sex bot with his likeness splashed all over the midnight news.

Carisi sighed, and shook his head. "I gotta go."

The bot actually managed to look disappointed. That was some top of the line programming right there, Carisi had to admit. 

"Do you have to? You only just got here." It reached out and laid its hand on Carisi's thigh, he could feel its warmth even through the thick cloth of his pants. The unexpected touch nearly made Carisi jump. "I will make it worth your while..."

Carisi exhaled in a short laugh. "N-no, it's nothing personal, it would just be--" The warm fingers slid up higher on his thigh, "-- _Really_ inappropriate, I'm sorry, but..." Carisi jerked, trying to move away, but only managed to bring the bot's hand into direct contact with his semi-hard cock, and where the hell had that come from?

Since when was he even remotely into cybers?

He jumped up from the bed before anything worse could happen. "Really, you're great. It's not you, it's me. I honestly gotta be... Somewhere else right now."

Without looking back, he left The Club in a hurry.


	4. For your consideration

_"You have reached the Governor's Office. Please swipe your IS to continue."_

"I'd like to talk to a human representative."

_"To make a donation, please press 1. To register as a volunteer for the next state elections, please press 2. To receive..."_

"Human representative. Human."

_"... please press 4. To leave individual feedback, please press 5.”_

"I don't believe this..."

_"Thank you for taking an interest in your community. Please leave your message after the tone."_

Carisi canceled the transmission before the beep ended. There was no way he could let Barba know what he had seen on an unsecure channel like that. But what else could he do? He didn't have Barba's private comm key. Would Barba hear of it if he left a bland, unnoticeable request to get back to him? It had been such a long time since they had talked to each other. He couldn't sound too urgent, but he'd have to get Barba's attention somehow.

His eye was caught by the flashing light of a new message to his private account. It was headed, "For your consideration". Frowning, he was about to bump it to the spam directory when he noticed the address. The Club. Sonny swallowed, his mouth suddenly gone dry.

A quick glance around reassured him that all of his colleagues were otherwise occupied. He opened the message. It was empty, save for a countdown.

59:37:22, and falling.

Carisi stared at the numbers, at the dwindling seconds that turned into minutes. His three-day Special Offer Deal. How had the manager put it? _Exclusive access rights_. Would they really reserve the companion just for him? Not that he was planning to go back there or anything... But at least for the next two-and-a-half days, no one else was going to get a Barba look-alike offering it all up with a smile.

"Carisi."

He jerked upright, swiping the message with the countdown away, emptying half his screen in his haste to close it.

Lee was standing by the door, frowning. "Didn't you hear the signal? Lunch is calling. You coming or what?"

"Alright, alright, hold your horses." Carisi got up and logged off his terminal. He nearly had to run to catch up with Lee and the others on their way to the mess hall. For once he wished that attendance wasn't mandatory. Usually he enjoyed the communal meals, and not because they were free of charge. The teams were all so scattered during work hours, shared meals made it a lot easier to get to know each other better, discuss their caseload, bond over the distaste for frozen peas (though in all fairness, Carisi would much rather have bonded over the enjoyment of freshly baked zeppole). He couldn't really concentrate on the conversation that day, though. The bot problem was running through his mind like a music blip on repeat. How was he going to tell Barba what was going on and still manage to keep the existence of the bot hidden from the public channels?

"Hey Sonny! Tell us about the sex bots!"

Carisi forgot to chew for a moment. He stared at Chavez, who was looking at him, gleeful and expectant, like a child waiting to be told about Santa's gift workshop. Had Lee let something slip about his near freak-out when he'd first spotted the Barba bot? He tried to catch his partner's eye to gauge where this had come from, but Lee was frowning down disdainfully at a glob of wheat berries on her food tray. "Um."

"Ignore him," Krantz sighed from Chavez's other side. "He hasn't shut up about those damned androids ever since he heard you and Lee went to that place."

"Is it true though? Did you see one, for real?"

Carisi, pretending his mouth was too full to speak, nodded. That only saved him for a couple of seconds, though. Now _everyone_ at their table but Lee was looking at him expectantly. "Yeah, um. The new models... They look pretty advanced."

"Did you get close to one?" Chavez was practically vibrating on the edge of his seat with excitement. "They're supposed to be better than the real thing!"

Carisi remembered thinking along the same lines not too long ago, now he really wished the bot he had met had been a little _less_ like the real thing. He cast about for something to say that would steer the conversation in another direction. "I guess. Say, how about those Mets..."

Ignoring him, Lee interjected. "Oh, please. Those things may be the most technically advanced sex machines ever--"

"Machines? I got one word for you, girl." Chavez cut her off. "Artificial consciousness! Synthetic soul!"

"That's four words," Lee countered, "And it doesn't change a thing. They can look like humans and think like humans, pretend to be humans, and fuck like humans--"

"Watch your French," Carisi protested wearily.

"--You'll still always _know_ they're not real."

"Yeah, but think of the things you could _do_ together," Chavez continued, apparently completely unaware of the way Lee shot daggers at him with her eyes. "There's no judgment. No history to think of, no baggage, no strings. They wouldn't care if you're a cop, or a garbage collector."

"Like any garbage collector could afford even an hour with a cyber hooker--"

"My point is," Chavez continued doggedly, "it's the ultimate free ride, Mel. You could do whatever you want, I mean... nothing would be too kinky, or too weird. You could just be yourself. And have the greatest sex ever."

"Jeez, remind me why you're single again," Krantz sighed and rolled his eyes at Carisi.

"OK, last resort, personal insult. You know I'm right," Chavez insisted while he polished off the rest of his vegetable frittata. "Sonny, back me up here."

"What is this, a guy thing?" Lee asked, staring at Chavez in disgust. "So you'd just do it with a sex bot if you had the chance?"

"Course I would," he said and shrugged. "Are you kidding me? That'd be like turning down a chance to give the next generation Beemer a test ride. Right?"

Carisi made the mistake of glancing up from his peas and found their eyes had shifted to him. "What are you looking at me for?"

"Chicken," Chavez snorted. "Howie? Would you?"

Krantz carefully laid down his fork and wiped his lips on a napkin before answering. "No."

"Aha!" Lee crowed triumphantly, while at the same time Chavez cried out in disbelief. "What are you talking about? Give me one reason why not! Just one!"

"Uh, because he's married?" Carisi offered.

"Because he's not a pathetic, sex-starved creep who's unable to form meaningful connections with actual human beings?" Lee suggested, raising her eyebrows.

"Because he's a 20th-century relic who's afraid of cybers, and still has a _landline_ , and writes stuff down on actual _paper_ and shit," Chavez sighed, looking at Krantz with sincere disappointment.

"Don't be so limited," Krantz chided, moving on to the blue jello. "Me and the missus, we'll try anything once."

"So why not?"

"Call me old-fashioned all you like," Krantz replied with a shrug. "But I believe sex should be consensual."

"You... What? What does that even mean?" Chavez asked, shaking his head. "They're _sex bots_. They were literally made for it!"

"You think they could say no?" Krantz asked.

For the first time, Chavez was struck silent, and Carisi could well understand it. Even as he thought back on the way the bot had come on to him the previous night, he could feel Krantz's words weigh on him. Fuck.

"No way to consent if there's no free will."

That moment, the bell signaled the end of lunch, and Carisi all but jumped up from his seat. "Come on, Lee," he mumbled. "Hanson wants us to check out the in-laws. Let's get rolling."

The sooner he got to distract himself with some actual work, the better.


	5. A friend in need

"Sonny! You're a sight for sore eyes."

"Hey, Liv." Carisi set down his glass of scotch outside of the projection range and swiped the volume on his holo port up a little. "It's been awhile."

"It's great to see you." She smiled at him, and he wished he had kept on his suit jacket for the holo call. His shirt untucked and his hair all mussed, he probably looked like a slob. Even if it was a Friday night and he had worked overtime all week long, this wasn't how he had wanted their first contact in months to be like.

"Yeah, same to you. How's Noah?"

"He's fine. Seems like we're out of the Jules Verne phase, now all he wants to talk about are space invaders and the Lunar Colonies." Her smile softened. "He loved the tronic puzzle you gave him for his birthday."

"Yeah, I got one for Bella's girl, too. Tommy and I played with it all Christmas morning." Carisi smiled at the memory. "Now she beats me at it whenever I come over."

"I can believe that," Olivia teased. "Ever since she started walking, she's been running circles around you."

Carisi chuckled. "Yeah." It felt good just to chat, he missed talking to Liv. All the same, he knew he was stalling. He had called her for a reason. Though he had tried to rehearse a bit how he'd broach the subject with her, he really hadn't managed to find a way that sounded coincidental. Maybe it was best to just push on ahead and not think too much about it. "Listen, Liv, I was wondering... Have you heard from Barba lately?"

She looked a bit surprised at the sudden change in subject. "Barba? Not lately, no. It's been a couple of months, but you know how busy he's been, with the re-election and everything."

Carisi nodded, wishing he hadn't put his drink that far out of reach. "Yeah, I was actually wondering, you know--"

A noise off-camera took Olivia's attention away for a moment. "Hang on a sec-- Yeah, I'll be right there, honey."

Carisi used the distraction to make a mad dash for his drink. He drained the remaining dregs in one gulp and discreetly put the empty glass down on the table edge.

She turned back to him. "I'm sorry, you were saying, about Barba...?"

"Can you get me Barba's private comm key?" he blurted out, liquid courage warming his stomach.

"Barba's key?" She looked at him, puzzled.

"Yeah, it's for... Well, I really need to talk to him. It's nothing serious, you don't have to worry, I'm not _dying_ or anything, but--"

"Sonny," she interrupted him, "You don't have to tell me why." 

He released the breath he'd been holding. "I can't even really explain it." Not on the comm, anyway. 

"Don't worry about it," she said, looking at him thoughtfully. "If you need it, I'll get it." She listened to something off screen again, frowning. "Sorry, but I gotta go. I think my son is trying to set the bathroom on fire... I'll comm you later?" 

"Yeah, sure. And thanks, lieu--Liv. I owe you one..." 

The projection had already gone dark before he finished the sentence. 

It didn't seem very likely that she was going to get back to him right away. Still, Carisi left the holo port switched on while he went to fix himself another drink. Scotch had never been his poison when he was younger, but the stuff grew on you if you let it. Back on the couch he idly flipped through the data streams, looking for unread messages, hoping that Liv had sent the key to his private address. Nothing there, though. 

Nothing but that message from The Club. 

51:02:45. And falling. 

At least now he was doing something about this. Liv was going to get him the key, he'd comm Barba, and Barba would take care of it somehow. If all went smoothly, he never actually had to go back to The Club and see the companion again. Which was just as well. After the lunch discussion with his teammates, Carisi thought it might be best to keep himself out of temptation's way. Not that he would ever do anything like Chavez had suggested. All right, so the bot had stirred him up a little, but that was only natural. It had been in full seduction mode, and Carisi was only human. That didn't mean he would ever actually take the chance if it presented itself. He would never be able to look the real Barba in the face again. 

But if things were different? If he didn't know Barba, if he had just gone to The Club to try for himself what it was like, and if he had picked the bot out of the catalog at random, maybe because it had nice eyes and a dirty smile to match? 

Carisi finished his drink and leaned back on the couch, stretching out and nudging off his shoes. He rested the empty glass on his chest and slowly dragged his free hand up, all the way from his thigh to the crease of his hip. He let it rest there, just like the bot had done. The touch had felt so warm and real. Carisi's fingers brushed the root of his cock through his pants and he shivered, making the ice cubes in his glass clink together. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the bot's face, how it had smirked at the way he had jumped, when it... Oh, god. This was _so_ wrong. 

"Let me help you get more comfortable," the soft voice of a younger Barba seemed to murmur close to his ear. "I will make it worth your while." 

Sighing, Carisi slipped his hand inside his pants and wrapped it around his half-hard cock. Would the bot's grip feel like this, or would it be firmer? Would it start nice and slow, impervious to the way Carisi might buck up into the touch? He gave himself a couple of agonizingly slow tugs and imagined the bot's chuckle at the way his cock rose, eager for the attention. 

"So impatient," the voice chided, only now it didn't sound like the younger version of Barba anymore. This was the voice of the man who had once wiped the floor with Carisi's first attempts to contribute to the Manhattan SVU cases. And whom he had wanted to impress so badly ever since. 

Whoa, whoa. Where had that come from? Carisi stopped, just lay there breathing, trying to think of anything but the real Barba. He wasn't going there, he was not going down that road. The times when he had jerked off to the fantasies of Barba, thought of heated stares from the other side of the courtroom, dreamed about laying one on him in the elevator, his favorite wank material, a victory blow job after winning a case together... Those times were over. He hadn't thought about that in years. He wasn't that person anymore. 

The sound of his door chime yanked him out of his thoughts. Carisi jerked upright and the glass on his chest tipped over, spilling half-melted ice cubes and cold water all over him. "Fuck!" 

Hurriedly swiping at his shirt, he got up to look at the FFR feed. Who the hell was visiting him this late on a Friday night? 

The holo projection showed a familiar face, looking directly into the transmission field. His bot. 


	6. A bot in my kitchen

"Good evening, Detective Carisi."

Carisi blinked, unsure of what to do. "Hi," he managed weakly, wishing he had changed his shirt before opening the door. The bot's mouth curled into a smile when the silence stretched between them.

"May I come in?"

"Uh, I don't know. That might not be such a good idea. It's pretty late..."

The bot raised its eyebrows, eyes wide. For a moment this made it look so much like the real Barba, Carisi actually missed some of the words coming out of its mouth. "...appreciate your concern, but I don't need to sleep."

"No, I mean..." Carisi cast about for reasons not to let the bot in. There had to be dozens, but the only one he could think of was _I might throw you down on the couch and..._ That's where he stopped himself. He wasn't even going to think that in front of the bot. It might take one look at him, read his vital signs or something, and _know_.

He admitted defeat at last, opening the door to let the bot inside. "Please, come in." Now what, though? The couch was out, for obvious reasons. His apartment wasn't that big. Bedroom? "Let's go into the kitchen."

The bot followed him and sat down at the kitchen table, like it was right at home. It glanced around the room with obvious interest. Probably looking for surfaces sturdy enough to take both their weight, Carisi thought, and then felt slightly ashamed of himself. It was his own fault, after that stuff on the couch... He was projecting. And being a dick about it. The bot had no way of knowing what it had interrupted.

"You enjoy cooking?" it asked, jerking Carisi out of his thoughts.

He shrugged noncommittally. "I like to cook for other people. Not much of a point cooking just for myself." He sat down on the opposite side of the table. A safe distance. "So. What made you come here? I didn't think you're allowed outside, I mean... I thought you had to stay at The Club."

Smiling, the bot shook its head. "Companions can go out. You can take me anywhere you like."

The double entendre _might_ just have existed in Carisi's head.

"Why are you here? I didn't ask you to come over," he said, a bit more brusquely than entirely necessary, perhaps. It was still odd to see the bot looking like Barba, and yet being very different in pretty much every way. The voice was right, but the bot used words and phrases that Barba would never have uttered. The eyes looked like Barba's, but they had never looked at Carisi like _that_. It set Carisi's nerves on edge. 

The bot didn't seem fazed by his sharp tone. "You left so quickly the other night." It leaned back in the chair, shifting on the seat. The movement was innocent enough, but Carisi had a vague suspicion that the bot was putting itself on display. "I didn't get much of a chance to show you that I'm worth coming back for."

Carisi frowned and shook his head. "Listen, just stop with the seduction act, alright? I don't want to hear it."

He needed a drink. Nothing alcoholic, if he didn't want this night to end badly. Just a soda, maybe. It was a relief to turn his back on the bot just for the brief moment of walking to the fridge. But when he returned to the table and saw it sitting still, eyes downcast, he felt bad for being so rude. The bot couldn't help being seductive. It was just doing its job.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked, feeling sheepish. "Soda? Water? WD-40?"

The bot smiled at the lame attempt at a joke. "Water, please."

Carisi went to get a glass, then filled it at the H2O dispenser. "I didn't know you could drink, either."

"I don't need it to survive, like you," the bot replied, taking tiny sips of the offered water. "But I can drink or eat to keep you company. Now and then I like to ingest some semi-organic nutrient suspension in a silicon-based liquid medium to lubricate my bio-functions."

Carisi pulled a face. "Sorry, I'm all out of that tonight."

The bot shrugged. "Water is fine. I try to stock up just in case."

"In case of what?"

The bot looked at him evenly. "I don't know what you like yet. Maybe you enjoy seeing me cry."

Carisi paused, stricken. The whole cybernetic companion thing had all seemed fun and games up till now. But the bot was giving him a very bleak impression of what it was really like to be employed to pleasure humans at The Club. It reminded Carisi of his old job at SVU, all those people with tales just as nasty. "Can you feel pain?" he asked carefully.

The bot's eyes met his and then flicked away. "Early tests showed that 85 out of a 100 humans could tell when a cybernetic companion was trying to fake discomfort. So they wrote the doloris subroutine."

Carisi shivered, trying not to let unbidden images of the bot, in pain and crying, set root in his mind. He wished he had kept to scotch now. "So, um. How about lying? Can you tell lies?"

Now the bot smiled a little, a smug smirk curling one corner of his mouth. "In dealing with sexual relationships, telling the truth can be quite detrimental. I am free to make use of evasion and subterfuge." It turned earnest again when it glanced at Carisi, as if worried that it had been gloating too openly. "I will answer any direct question of yours truthfully, though."

Carisi frowned. "I know that's not true. You wouldn't tell me your IS when I asked."

"I am incapable of telling you what I do not know," the bot replied, and though its voice stayed calm, there was a hint of urgency in its eyes. As if it desperately wanted Carisi to believe it. "The Club keeps that information classified."

Carisi wasn't quite convinced yet. "Every cybernetic has an IS hard-coded in its system," he protested. "You should be able to access it."

"I know the exact place in my neuronic makeup where the code begins and ends. But I can't read it," the bot replied. "The Club has encrypted it."

Carisi stared at the bot, the wheels inside his head turning and turning. If only he had that IS, he could send it to Barba. Not another word of explanation necessary. "Maybe you can't read the IS," he said slowly, thinking it over. "But I bet I know someone who can."


	7. Technophilia

"Leslie! Hey man, you in here?"

The workshop was shrouded in shadows, only a few power banks glowed like little islands of light in the darkness. Connolly was nowhere in sight, but he wouldn't leave his devices charging on their own, Carisi was sure of it. He ventured farther into the vast gloomy room, the bot trailing behind him, looking around with interest. The work benches were overloaded with electronics and mecha-tools. Bigger contraptions lined the walls, between them black and white murals peeked through and added to the overall surreal feeling of the place. A deep hum seemed to emanate from the ground. It always made Carisi imagine that he was lost in the bowels of a spaceship. Or maybe the spaceship's attic, filled with discarded junk.

"Leslie?" Carisi squinted into the dark. Was there some movement by the boarded-up window? He tried to turn that way and bumped into a pile of boxes, barely managed to steady them before they could topple over. "Leslie, it's me, Sonny. This isn't about undercover work, I promise!"

"You promised that last time, too," a sullen voice rang out behind him. Carisi turned, but still couldn't see a damn thing. "It took me weeks to get that gunk out of the transistors, and the Service confiscated all my data tracks."

The bot touched Carisi's arm to get his attention. "A sound system is misdirecting his voice," it said quietly near Carisi's ear. "He is moving towards the exit, over there."

Carisi nodded. "Hey, can't we talk about this?" he called out, deliberately facing the wrong direction. Then he spun on his heels and was by the door in a few quick strides. Connolly yelped when Carisi grabbed him by the shoulder.

"You weren't leaving?" he asked innocently. "You nearly missed us."

"What a shame," Connolly said, lips pressed together in displeasure. "Well, spit it out, then, I don't have all night. What is it the NYPD wants this time?" He blanched suddenly, twitching underneath Carisi's grasp. "Wait, what do you mean, _us_?" he hissed, eyes darting around. "You brought someone here with you? Sonny, are you nuts?"

"Hey, relax." Carisi looked over his shoulder and saw the bot cautiously advancing towards them. "I think you're gonna love this."

"I told you never to bring _anyone_ ," Leslie started, sounding close to throwing a fit, but his voice trailed off when the bot moved into the light. "Wait, is that..."

A flick of his hand suddenly raised the luminescence levels to daylight. Carisi flinched and let go of Connolly to shield his eyes, but too late. All he could see now were stars and livid streaks burned into his retina. "Jeez, give a guy a warning next time," he grumbled.

Connolly wasn't listening. He stood before the bot, slowly pushing his ultravision goggles up to his forehead. "Holy mother of quark..."

The bot smiled at him. "Hello."

"An M11-214," Connolly moaned, sounding to Carisi like someone had just dropped a Playboy bunny in his hot tub.

"Yes," the bot nodded. And added, a little proudly, "I am Detective Carisi's companion."

Connolly looked over his shoulder, giving Carisi a look that was at once inquisitive and accusing.

Carisi felt his ears heat up. "Look, it's a long story. And it's just for a couple of days, anyway."

Connolly had already turned his attention back to the bot. "I have read so much about you," he was saying almost shyly. "Tripolymer composites, bioplast sheeting, neural transceivers, iso-linear optical chips, hyperconductive pathways... You are an engineer's dream."

"Why, thank you," the bot replied, and to Carisi's ears it sounded just a tad smug. It even shot him a look as if to make sure he was listening.

"But your programming, oh, out of this world!" Connolly continued excitedly. "The Schumann specification... Artificial conscience combined with a synthetic soul..."

"I was made to feel," the bot said modestly, and Carisi could have sworn he saw little cartoon hearts fly out of Connolly's ears. Enough was enough.

"Yeah, yeah, that's all really fascinating," he interrupted their weird cybernetic courtship ritual. "Leslie, we need you to read out its IS, it's been scrambled. Can you do it?"

Connolly seemed to shrink back into himself now that Carisi had reminded him he and the bot weren't alone in the world. Good.

"I can do a superficial scan," he said hesitantly. "Anything invasive, we'd have to do a proper JB first, or the federal system will be alerted."

The bot regarded him with renewed interest. "You could jailbreak my restricted programming?"

Connolly honest to god _blushed_. "If you allowed me a direct connection to your neural interface..."

Carisi had to work very hard not to smack that stupid lovelorn expression off his stupid face. "Guys! Focus! We're here for the IS."

"Fine, fine." Connolly picked up a scanning unit from a nearby table and held out a small metallic disc. "Let me place this on your occipital pressure point..."

"Give me that." Carisi took the disc. If anyone was going to touch the bot's occi-bits, it was him. He moved closer to the bot, putting himself effectively between it and Connolly, and touched the disc to the base of the bot's skull. "Here?"

"That's right," the bot said quietly, and Carisi realized too late how close they were standing now. He had never actually touched the bot before this. Its hair felt just as silky as it looked, and it smelled really nice. How the hell did it smell so nice? Only a few inches between them, he only had to lean in _just so_ and their lips would touch…

He cleared his throat and stepped back. The bot was looking at him, big green eyes curious and a little disappointed. Carisi turned away, and looked over Connolly's shoulder at the digital read-out instead. "So, uh, this is the bot's brain in a nutshell?"

Connolly shot him a pitiful look, as one might give a backward child. "It's a break-down schematic of the included subroutines and specialization clusters."

"What are all those gray areas?"

Connolly frowned. "Those are bits of restricted programming." Upon Carisi's questioning expression, he added, "The Schumann specification is completely inclusive. It was designed to cover all possible fields of expertise. The M11-214s can participate in all kinds of scenarios, specialize in any number of interests. It's up to the owners to decide which bits are commented out."

In his bot's case, it wasn't very hard to imagine what they had left out. Everything but the sexy parts, Carisi thought bitterly.

Connolly pointed at the schematic and frowned. "There's the IS. But with that kind of encryption, I'd need a couple of weeks to crack it."

"We don't have that kind of time," Carisi said dully. He turned to the bot. "Let's go back."

"What, already?" Connolly asked unhappily. "Don't you want to... Maybe charge up a bit? I have industrial strength outlets--"

"Come on," Carisi called out, already by the door. 

The bot carefully took off the metal disc and handed it to Connolly. "It was very nice to meet you, Leslie." 

"Yeah, same here," Connolly replied sadly, looking down at his scanner. "I wish--"

"Are you coming or what?" Carisi called impatiently, and the bot went to join him at last.


	8. Pin-up

"Do you want me to return to The Club?" 

The bot looked inquisitively at Carisi as they got out of the taxi cab in front of his apartment building.

Not having expected that question, Carisi hesitated. He shouldn't take the bot home with him, for a lot of reasons. But having it return to The Club meant letting go, losing control of the situation. Anything might happen to the bot while it was at The Club. What if he couldn't get hold of Barba before the three days were up? What if another patron was willing to pay more for it than Carisi ever could? What if The Club caught a hint of what Carisi was actually doing (or not doing) with the bot and made it disappear before anyone could prove they were breaking the law?

"No, you better come in with me," he replied as he swiped his IS over the cab's read-out panel to pay for the fare. The car rejoined the sparse night traffic and was gone in a few seconds. Carisi and the bot rode the elevator up in complete silence. Once the apartment door slid closed behind them, the bot stopped and turned towards Carisi, its eyes glittering in the darkness.

"I didn't think you'd want me to stay over," it said softly, sneaking an arm around Carisi's waist. Carisi gripped its hand just in time before it could touch his ass.

"I'm gonna... Get myself a drink," he said, twisting out of the bot's grasp in what could not be mistaken for a sensual manner. Ears burning, he fled to the kitchen. Okay, taking the bot home with him might not have been the best idea. Still, he was a grown man, for Pete's sake. He should be able to resist one night of temptation. No matter how inviting.

When Carisi returned with drink in hand, the bot had settled down on the couch and was watching him.

"Don't worry about the individual signifier," it said gently. "We can find something else for you to send to your friend."

Carisi blinked, awkwardly standing before the couch. "What are you talking about?"

"We can shoot a holo, if you wish," the bot said. "I take a great picture, just try me." It leaned back on its elbows, legs spreading like an open invitation.

Carisi had to make himself look away. He sat down on the couch next to the bot, keeping a safe distance between them, before asking, "What-- Holo? What friend?"

"I have been trying to analyze the situation. Your behavior has not been very typical of a man seeking companionship," the bot said evenly.

Carisi frowned at his drink. "What do you mean?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," the bot said. "You have picked me, out of forty-seven other available companions. You chose me specifically, and after meeting me, have not asked for a replacement. That leads me to the conclusion that you find me attractive."

"I guess," Carisi mumbled. The bot went on, ignoring the interruption. 

"You are paying a fair amount of money for me. Of course I don't know the details of the deal you have made, but I am aware that The Club caters to a high-end clientele, and would set the prices accordingly." The bot shot him a sidelong glance. "And yet, though you find me aesthetically pleasing and are spending a lot of credit on my company, you do not want me."

Carisi almost laughed. "What makes you think that?"

The bot gave him a smile, but there was little humor in it. "You do not touch me, or kiss me, or tell me to undress. You do not ask me to do anything for you. You don't even let me help you relax after a stressful day. Instead, you try to gain access to my specification details, which are not in my power to give you freely." It looked down at its hands, and shrugged. "This makes me think you are saving me for someone. Someone you hope will enjoy me. Someone you want to make happy, by giving me to them."

For one mad second, Carisi considered the thought of Barba, getting a bot looking like himself as a gift. Of the bot's young face and Barba looking down at it while it demonstrated one of the thousand ways it could make him come with just its tongue. He felt his mouth go dry.

"That's not it." They really, really needed to change the subject. "But listen, uh, taking a holo is actually a great idea."

The bot brightened up a bit at that. "I have my moments," it preened. "Brain the size of a planet, and all that."

It started to undo the first few buttons on its shirt. Carisi quickly stopped it, trapping the bot's hand with his own. "Not _that_ kind of holo. We want something way more provocative than that." He smiled and waggled his eyebrows. 

Ten minutes later, the bot was looking down at the outfit Carisi had laid out on his bed, shaking its head. "Your definition of provocative widely deviates from what I have been taught, Detective Carisi." It eyed the faded Fordham Law T-shirt and sweatpants with obvious doubt. "Are you sure about this?"

"Believe me, he won't be able to look away," Carisi replied, still digging through the depths of his closet. "Aha!" With great triumph he pulled out a ratty old Mets cap. "Put that on sideways."

Shrugging, the bot began to take off its clothes. Carisi barely managed to leave the room in time. He busied himself with switching the holo unit from display to record to keep from thinking about the Barba bot in various stages of undress. While he flipped through the settings, he saw a new private message blinking red.

"I hope your friend isn't the fastidious kind," the bot said, coming out of the bedroom, picking at the pants. "It seems these clothes have some old food stains on them."

Carisi nodded, still distracted by the message. "Yeah, um... I think I last wore that when my niece was here. She loves chocolate."

It was from Liv. True to her word, she had sent him Barba's private comm key. Carisi hesitated at saving it, pausing over the display. Things were going as he had planned, finally. 

Turning back to the bot, he pointed the holo transceiver at the couch. "Now just sit there and try to look like... Like this is the least tasteful thing you've ever worn and you want to slowly strangle me with a pair of paisley suspenders."

"That won't be taxing my thespian subroutines very much," the bot replied gravely as it sat down.

Carisi smiled and checked the transceiver settings one last time. "We're good to go. Whenever you're ready."

"What do you want me to say?" The bot pulled its feet up and sat cross-legged on the couch. Was it feeling too cold?

"I don't know, just tell me who you are," Carisi replied, gesturing vaguely.

"This late at night you want to bring up philosophy?" The bot smiled. "I am a cybernetic companion, model M11-214. My designation is 'Mateo'. I am leased by The Club in Manhattan."

"Who to?"

"Detective Dominick Carisi Jr."

"And what is it you do, exactly?"

The bot shot him a look that was partly amused, partly arrogant. Definitely smoldering. "Anything you want me to." 

It shifted in its seat, again the subtle movement that Carisi had come to think of as a motion of display. And it worked. He found it hard to resist looking at the bot's crotch. Instead, he moved in front of the projection range. 

"Call me back." That had to be enough. Carisi shut down the recording and saved it to his private account. He heard rustling in the background and saw the bot taking off the baseball hat when he turned around.

It shot him a rueful smile. "Did you want me to keep it on?"

"Nah." Carisi shook his head, distracted by the thought of whether he should send the recording to Barba right then or wait until the morning. Would Barba even see it this late at night and answer right away? Not likely. Still, if he did... Carisi wasn't sure he was up to facing the real Barba tonight, on top of the cybernetic version. And yet, if Barba was still the same person Carisi had known, he would want to deal with this kind of situation as quickly as possible. But Carisi had waited this long. Would another few hours make that much of a difference?

Carisi gave up trying to make up his mind. Instead, he turned to the bot. "Look, it's really late. I'm gonna make up the couch for you to sleep on." He went to his bedroom and returned with a bundle of blankets and comforters, then dumped them on the couch next to the bot. "I don't have a spare pillow, will you be alright like this?"

The bot looked at him with confusion. "Detective Carisi, you know I don't need to sleep."

"Well, I can't let you just sit here all by yourself all night long," Carisi protested. "Are you... Don't you need to recharge, or something?"

"My power levels are at seventy-nine percent," the bot said. "But if you don't require my services tonight, I will switch to a less active mode to conserve energy."

"Yeah, sounds good," Carisi mumbled. "Well. Good night, then."

"Sleep well," the bot said pleasantly. It looked at him in a way that suggested they mess up the bedding on the couch together. Carisi beat a hasty retreat. The later it got, the more he could feel his convictions crumbling. He didn't want the situation to get to a point where he actually considered taking what the bot so freely offered.

Back in his bedroom, he couldn't escape the bot's presence, either. Its clothes were lying on a chair, neatly folded. Carisi walked over, hesitantly touched the silky shirt, the soft fabric of the trousers.

"Don't be an asshole, Sonny," he told himself. "You're being a fucking creep about this."

That settled it. He was sending the recording to Barba, right this minute, before he could dither around any further.


	9. Sense and sensibility

The next morning, Sonny woke up with the sensation of an arm resting on his bare midriff, gentle breaths huffing against his shoulder blades. "You're up early," he mumbled.

"I don't sleep," was the reply. "But I was cold."

Sonny turned over and put his arm around the bot as it nestled closer, half lying on top of him. "Hello," he said sleepily, and the bot looked at him, green eyes glowing in the early morning sun.

"Are you going to send me away?"

"No," Sonny said, and he had never been so sure of anything. "Not ever." The bot leaned closer and they kissed, deep, long kisses without ever having to breathe. They kissed until the bed started to vibrate and chime and Carisi woke up.

His comm on the bedside table was buzzing. An encrypted ID, government issue. Carisi rubbed his bleary eyes and opened a channel. "Hello?" He listened to the voice on the other side. "Yeah. I can be there in an hour."

~~~

"Governor."

Barba, standing by the window, hands in his pockets, turned around at the sound of Carisi's voice.

Damn, but for a moment, it seemed like no time at all had passed, like he was still ADA, ready to discuss all the ins and outs of a case, roll up his sleeves and get right into it. Dress Carisi down with half a look, raise him up to inner giddiness with a word of praise. Seldom given and all the more precious for it.

Then Barba moved into the room, sitting down at the conference table and Carisi could see him better. His suit was as immaculate and expensive-looking as ever, but the tie and pocket square seemed a little less exuberant. The crinkles around Barba's eyes were more defined, the speckling of gray at his temples a bit more generous than Carisi remembered. He didn't look like seven years had passed since they had last met, though. Bastard.

"Detective Carisi, thank you for coming over. We spoke on the comm," said an unexpected voice from Carisi's right. Distracted by Barba, Carisi hadn't even noticed there was someone else in the room. A woman, closing in on him and making introductions, Barba's attorney. Carisi shook her hand and couldn't remember her name by the time they were all seated around the table, Barba sitting farthest away from him.

"As you can imagine, we are trying to deal with this matter quickly and with the minimal amount of fuss," the woman said in a professionally warm voice, and Carisi nodded slowly.

Barba wasn't looking at him directly, instead seemed to be looking over his shoulder out the window.

"We are very grateful for your discretion and your continued cooperation, detective," the attorney said, flipping through the contents of her data pad. "And after this, we won't take up any more of your time. If you would please read this NDA carefully and then press your thumb on the dotted line..."

Carisi cleared his throat. “So was it a plan to target the governor? Were they going to run a feature on cybernetic companions before the elections, or something?”

Barba stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, shaking his head as if to clear it. The only sign so far that this whole story affected him even just a little bit, Carisi noted, and it was gone just as quickly. He didn't speak, though. Again it was his attorney who continued talking.

“As far as we can tell, that was not the case,” she replied. “The Taiwanese production company illegally procured a number of holo prints, based on real people. Governor Barba’s was one of them.” She exchanged a look with Barba that Carisi couldn’t quite understand. "The federal database managed to retrieve the locations of all twenty-five samples produced in that line. Our associates have already worked out the recall forms," she said smoothly.

Twenty-five samples? Carisi felt a bit faint at the thought. "So, what's going to happen to the bots?"

"The androids are currently being collected at a local facility for deconstruction."

"To be destroyed." Of course, that should have been obvious, to anyone with a brain. Still, Carisi felt his stomach drop.

"To be recycled," the attorney corrected him. "The main objective will be to remove the current conscience and memory banks. The hardware itself will be made use of in other projects."

"Is that really... I mean, is that absolutely necessary? Maybe you could just put them into storage, or something..." Even as he said it, Carisi had to cringe slightly at how stupid and naive that sounded.

Barba had turned around and was now finally looking at him, a look that seemed sad and a bit fond. Pitiful. A bitter taste started to burn Carisi's throat and he swallowed it down.

"Detective Carisi," the attorney addressed him, and he was forced to break eye-contact with Barba. "I'm sure you are well aware of the implications. This matter goes beyond a mere copyright infringement--"

Carisi scoffed. "Copyright? Are you kidding me?"

"As I said before,” she plowed on, “we are very grateful for the pains you have taken to keep this delicate issue under wraps. But now it's time for us to take over."

“Yeah, but, come on…”

"Ms. Keener," Barba's voice interrupted them unexpectedly. "Please leave us alone for a minute."

Both their heads snapped up to look at Barba, but the attorney was the one who went over to him. Carisi could only make out faint murmurs and hissed bits of conversation. "...Thought you promised to stay out of this-- _Yes_ , but he's -- Are you sure that's _wise_?" Then Keener breezed out of the room.

Barba turned towards a table with complimentary drinks, poured himself a cup of coffee, added sugar to it. He pulled a face after taking the first sip, unsurprisingly. That stuff had probably been percolating for hours. Carisi slowly got up and joined him.

"Despite all of this, it's good to see you,” Barba said, and shot Carisi a warm glance. Carisi quickly looked down at his hands. It had been so long, so long since he had been this close to Barba, actually close enough to touch, but he couldn't block out the memory of the bot looking at him just like that, only a few hours ago. Just the thought of it made his ears burn.

“Yeah, you, too,” Carisi replied, but didn't dare to meet Barba's eyes again. “And congrats on the, you know. I hear the re-election campaign is going real well.”

“Maybe if we can get out ahead of this...”

Carisi shrugged and bit his lip so he wouldn't blurt out anything stupid, like he had before.

"It's funny," Barba said conversationally when the silence between them began to stretch. "One nude holo shoot to put myself through Harvard, that's all it took. I thought I had it under control, too. The negatives were all retracted and destroyed years before I made ADA."

"Too bad," Carisi replied without thinking and he flushed slightly when Barba gave him a crooked smile.

All too quickly, the smile faded. "You know I have to get rid of the bots," Barba said, his eyes back on that sad excuse for a coffee. "If anyone else makes the connection, I might as well move to Canada and start planting potatoes for a living."

Carisi shrugged again. He filled a cup with coffee and creamer and sugar, just to give his hands something to do. "Yeah, I know."

"But...?" Barba was looking at him sideways, really looking at him. It made the words harder to get out, always had.

"Just feels wrong to me." He took a sip of the muddy brew and made a face just as Barba had. 

"Well, imagine how _I_ feel, learning of the fact that my likeness has been used to produce a line of sex bots without my knowledge," Barba said, raising his eyebrows. "Such opportunities wasted. The threesomes I could have had with myself..."

One sip of coffee felt like a red hot gallon going up his nose. Carisi spent the next half-minute doubled over, coughing, and Barba patted his back.

"Seriously though," Barba said when the cough was starting to subside a little. "Just sign the damned NDA so we can get on with our lives, please."

Carisi's eyes were still burning from the coughing, that was the only reason why they might have teared up for just a second. "Alright."


	10. Sex toy deliveries

"Just a moment, detective."

Carisi stopped on his way out of the meeting room, turned.

Barba's attorney was typing into her comm before looking up at him. "A couple of agents will drop by your place to get the bot within the next hour. Then you'll be done with all this."

Carisi swallowed. He didn't really know how to tell her that he wasn't actually that eager to be done with all this, not without sounding like a loon. "You think the bot is just gonna come quietly?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "I hope you have enough sense not to tell the _android_ it's about to be recycled. I thought that much was obvious."

"It's not an idiot," Carisi protested. "Brain the size of a planet, you don't think it'll notice something's up?"

"I'm sure the agents can handle it," she replied evenly. "And besides, there's nowhere the bot could run. Its IS will be tracked at all times."

"Still, the last thing you want is a cybernetic with the governor's face running amok in the streets of New York," Carisi said. "Maybe... I could take it to the deconstruction site, you know. It knows me. It trusts me."

Keener shot him a calculating glance. "I don't know, detective. That doesn't really sound like such a good idea. No offense, but you seem emotionally compromised."

"Oh, really?" Carisi scoffed. "Well, yeah. Maybe I am. I'm the one who started this whole mess in the first place." He shot her an imploring look. "Look, I got the bot out of its safe zone, I called you behind its back, and now it's gonna be destroyed because of what I did. The least I can do is not have it dragged off by strangers to be taken apart."

"You think it'll prefer to be delivered to its death by someone it trusts?" Keener asked softly, raising her eyebrows.

Carisi didn't know what to say to that. Death. He hadn't thought of it that way, not before Keener put it out there. But she was right, of course.

Keener waited for him to reply, and when he didn't, she shrugged, and started tapping away at her comm again. "All right, fine. I’m sending you the address of the tech site. Please deliver the android, intact, in the next hour. I will hold you personally responsible if it gets _lost_ on the way."

She brushed past him into the meeting room. Carisi stared after her, feeling like a fool. Deliver the bot to its deconstruction. And he had volunteered for the job. Fucking hell. How had he gotten into this?

There was a pleasant scent of coffee in the air when he opened the door to his apartment.

"Hello?"

"In the kitchen," he heard the bot's voice call out. It was sitting at his table with a steaming pot. Carisi noticed that it was still wearing the old t-shirt and sweat pants, and had the faintest hint of bed-head. He swallowed against the bitterness that was threatening to rise again.

"I saw you had actual coffee beans, and I very much enjoy the smell. It's different from the synthetic version," the bot explained. It shot Carisi an apologetic look. "I hope you don't mind. I know they are somewhat hard to find."

Carisi shook his head and sat down next to it.

The bot offered him a mug. "How do you take it?"

"Black." He held the warm mug in his hands, wondering how to begin. How had Judas done it? How did one start? It wasn't that he ever had a problem with lying, not usually, not before.

The bot helped him out, without meaning to. "Did your friend like our holo?"

Carisi nodded. "We, um. We need to get going soon."

"He wishes to see me?" the bot asked brightly.

Carisi nodded again, but didn't say anything else. Evasion and subterfuge. Maybe he'd manage to muddle through by telling the bot as little as possible. He didn't seem to be very good at it, though. The bot was looking at him sideways, almost warily. Carisi felt his ears heat up. Was he so transparent that he didn't even have to open his mouth anymore? "What? What is it?"

"Detective," the bot said, its eyes searching Carisi's. "I know I have failed to give you full satisfaction."

Carisi winced. "Listen, it's not about that."

"It's always about that," the bot said. "But I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful. I have enjoyed being with you. I know what kindness is. You have been kind."

If only the earth would open up and swallow him right there. Carisi tried to work his throat around the knot firmly lodged there, but failed. "We really gotta go. They're expecting us."

The bot smiled and got up readily. "I'm just going to change."

It vanished into the living room. Carisi imagined it undressing, putting on the clothes issued by The Club. The Fuck-Me attire. Well, Carisi was going to fuck it over good and proper. He shot a longing glance at the bottle of Scotch on his kitchen shelf, glowing amber in the weak Saturday afternoon sun. Later. He left his coffee on the table and followed the bot.

They took a cab to the specified address, a short ride to one of the Service stations. Carisi had to ask for directions at the front desk. They advanced deeper and deeper into the bowels of the building, and Carisi could feel the bot next to him puzzle over the location. It looked surprised when they ended up before a white door, designated Laboratory #27. "Here?"

"That's what it says." Carisi switched off his comm and they walked in together.

Carisi wasn't really sure what he had expected. He had tried not to dwell on the subject, maybe vaguely imagined something like a doctor's office, with a couch or something. The room was stark white and nearly empty save for a workbench at which a man in a white lab coat sat. His face was half obscured by goggles and he was bent over a piece of tech, picking at its twisted innards. Carisi couldn't quite see what it was.

"You're late," he accused Carisi without looking up. "Stay there, don't touch anything."

A flicker of movement drew Carisi's attention to the far side of the room. It was sectioned off with infra bars. Behind the bars huddled close to the wall was a group of bots, at least twenty of them. They all looked like his bot. And they all looked terrified.

He could feel his bot's gaze resting on him. "Detective Carisi? I don't understand. What are we doing here?"

Carisi made himself meet its eyes, even though he didn't know what to say. What was there to say now? _They are going to switch you off and take you apart. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen._ It was true, but that was a child's excuse. He hadn't broken a window with his baseball. Ever since he had first laid eyes on the bot in that elevator, everything he had done had been in Barba's interest, to help an old friend. Not the bot. "I'm sorry," he said.

The bot's eyes flicked to the other androids and back to him. "Are you here to exchange me for a new companion? Please, I can do better... I'll be more like you want me to."

"Is this the one from Manhattan?" The technician was suddenly standing next to them. He reached out and matter-of-factly placed a small metal disc on the bot's temple. "Twenty-three, only two more to go..."

The bot looked at Carisi imploringly. It opened its mouth, but no sound emerged. Brows knitted in confusion, it touched its own throat.

Carisi turned to the technician. "What did you do?"

"Inhibitor," the technician grumbled, then pointed the bot towards the closed-off area. "Remove clothing, shoes and all other items, put them in that box," he rattled off in a bored manner. "Put on one of those robes and stand by for decontamination."

To Carisi's horror, the bot obeyed at once. It walked over to the box and methodically started to strip. Off came the silky shirt, and Carisi now saw that the bot was wearing a black undershirt beneath it. Off with the shoes, socks were neatly folded and stored inside them. Next came the pants, revealing strong thighs, calves dusted with dark hair. When it reached for the underpants, Carisi quickly turned around. He couldn't bear to see more, not like this.

The technician was at his elbow, handing him a tablet. "Are you Detective Carisi? Press your thumb down there."

Carisi did as he was told and then opened his mouth to ask about the bot. He was interrupted by the door sliding open, revealing another man with another bot just like his in tow.

The technician nodded grimly. "Finally. You guys are taking your sweet damn time. Is this one from Maryland or Kansas?"

"Kansas."

The new bot shot the technician a winning smile. "Honestly, there must be some kind of mistake here. There are much better things to do with me..."

"I bet," the technician said dispassionately, pressing the inhibitor disc to its temple, effectively cutting off the stream of talk. "Remove clothing, shoes and all other items, put them in that box. Put on one of those robes, stand by for decontamination."

Carisi was jostled to the side as the technician took the tablet from him. He glanced over at the enclosure. His bot was now clad in a beige robe, just like the others. It was standing behind the infra bars, looking at him longingly, asking without words. Carisi couldn't take that look any longer. He needed some air. "Excuse me." While the other two men were still busy with the formalities on the tablet, Carisi fled the room.


	11. Existential crisis

"Hey, watch where you're going!"

Carisi completely ignored the person he had just bumped into, pushed the heavy exit doors open and stepped outside into the gray afternoon. He tried his best to calm down -- took deep breaths, closed his eyes and imagined the Great Lawn in Central Park, the grass speckled with autumn leaves, sunlight breaking through thick clouds, kids yelling, the satisfying thwap of a bat hitting the ball. None of that helped. He felt sick, a vague but persistent nausea pressing on his stomach.

What had he done? This was bad, so very bad. The way the bot had looked at him before he left the room... Carisi felt the bile rise, burning against the back of his throat. He had to sit down, but there was nothing, no benches or ledges nearby. He made do with the steps of the Service station instead, sank down heavy as a sandbag, and ran his hands through his hair. The bot. He had known exactly what was going to happen, why the hell had he insisted on taking the bot himself?

If only he could get away, and quick. Not back home. No way was he going back there now. It was still full of the reminders of the previous night. Just looking at that couch... Carisi remembered how the bot had left it that morning, the sheets and blankets he had made the bot sleep in a neatly folded stack. The kitchen still had two mugs of cold coffee on the table. And in his bedroom, where the bot had changed, were his old T-shirt and sweat pants (probably folded as well) on a chair. And there was his bed... Which the bot had never actually touched, but which still prompted the memory of that dream, of a kiss that lasted forever, of the bot close and intimate and trusting.

Maybe he could find a hotel room for a week or two. Just until everything felt normal again. How had Barba put it? Everyone get back to their lives.

Several unoccupied cabs zoomed by, but Carisi didn't get up. He could do nothing but sit there, couldn't decide on what to do, where to go. The only thing he was deadly sure of was that alcohol had to be involved somehow, lots of it. A bar seemed the most appealing option, some dingy place where it didn't matter that it was the middle of the afternoon, with patrons who weren't going to look too closely at his Service badge. Somewhere he could unload on a sympathetic barkeeper. For a moment, he considered dropping in on Bella. She could always be counted on to listen to him and to keep his secrets, but that meant no alcohol if the kids were around.

Maybe his mother? She was sure to be home at this time of day. Would she understand anything about the bot? Even living with the ordinary mod cons like environment control and holovision, Carisi didn't think his parents had ever come into contact with actual artificial intelligence. But though she might not understand the technical parts of the story, his mother would know he had done something wrong. And try to comfort him, some way or another, like she always did. Carisi imagined his mother lighting a candle in church for the bot, and felt hysterical laughter rising inside. He clamped down on it, bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself with the pain. The Catholic Church's stance on cybernetics was clear, its view on synthetic souls damning.

But maybe there were shades of interpretation, like with other issues? Carisi's priest had helped him a lot when he was young and confused and scared about his sexuality. Father Brennan was retired now, but there had to be others. Carisi felt the strong urge to confess to someone. Get on his knees and get it all out in the open. Maybe stay on his knees for the foreseeable future. Carisi fumbled his comm out of his pocket, switched it on to find out if there was a church in the vicinity. Clammy fingers sticking on the screen, the personal messages flickered up instead.

_For your consideration._

Big black numbers, still counting down. Would they keep counting or would they stop when the bot was deactivated? Carisi stared at the dwindling time. His thumb hovered over the _delete message_ button. The Club didn't own the bot anymore, so neither did he. He never had.

He switched off the comm and slipped it back in his pocket, no longer feeling the need to look for a church after that. What was the use? Even if he found the one priest who didn't think of cybernetics with synthetic souls as an abomination unto man, what could that priest ever say to make things right again, undo the bad decisions that Carisi had made? There weren't enough Hail Marys in the world for this kind of thing.

There really was only one place he could go. Carisi got up, brushed off the seat of his pants, squared his shoulders.

And went back inside.


	12. Jailbreak

"Geez, what is it now? I'm actually trying to get some work done over here..."

Carisi, who had just entered the room, stopped dead in his tracks. The technician was still at his workbench, had barely looked up when Carisi entered. He was just in the middle of peeling the face off a Barba bot's head.

Carisi felt like he might throw up. He balled his fists, closed his eyes for a second, counted to ten, and had himself back under control. He only glanced at the corner with the bots for a moment and immediately wished he hadn't. Some of them had turned to face the wall. The rest were watching the deconstruction of their brother with hollow eyes. Carisi tried not to think about which one of them was his bot.

He turned to the technician. "Listen, something came up, my lieutenant wants the bot I brought in one last time for questioning. I gotta take it with me for a couple of hours."

"You gotta be kidding me," the technician snarled. "I only just got them all processed."

"Hey, man, I'm sorry, I know you got your plate full with all these." Carisi had walked up to him and was actually managing to look sympathetic while doing his best not to gag. "And let me tell ya, I feel it. This sucks, weekend overtime and all..."

"You don't know half of it," the technician grumbled. "I got the order to finish this lot by Monday morning. Monday morning! Do you know how long it takes to remove the bioplast sheeting and burrow down into their crania to dig out the mainboard? If these M11-214s are gonna be recycled to do deep-sea maintenance or scrub down the ISS or whatever, why the hell isn't it enough to just reprogram their matrixes, is what I want to know."

"Beats me," Carisi lied easily, shrugging and leaning against the work station. "But you know, my boss is gonna ream my ass if I don't bring him that bot soon. I'll be out of your hair in a sec, and I'll be back in an hour, two hours tops." He gave the technician his best hangdog expression. "C'mon, please? Help a fella out here."

The technician hesitated a moment, then growled, "Give me your IS."

Carisi grinned, and though he still very much felt like throwing up, his sincere relief made the chummy act much easier to pull off. "Thanks, man. You're a saint, I'll make it up to you! How about I bring you some dinner when I come back? My treat."

"And then you're gonna buy me flowers and we'll take a carriage ride in Central Park? Take your damn bot and get out of here already," the technician growled, handing Carisi back his chip and turning back to his workbench.

An opening appeared in the infra confinement. Carisi quickly walked in. The bots crowded around him, desperation in all their faces. Some of them reached out to touch him, and Carisi backed off towards the infra bars, fearing for one wild moment that he had made a huge mistake even going in. There were at least 20 of them still, each in prime condition. If the plain and direct sight of that workbench had unhinged their view of the supremacy of humankind a bit, he didn't stand the ghost of a chance. But the bots didn't close in on him any further, even though they were all still standing way too close for comfort.

"Okay, which one of you is my bot?" he asked in a low voice. His stomach dropped when none of the bots came forward. They were all just looking at him with pain and longing. Fuck. If only he could take them all with him, every single one. But he wouldn't even make it out of the room that way.

The moments trickled by and still none of them came forward. Carisi stared at them, tried to find his bot in each of the faces. They all looked completely identical, except for one that had a black eye and a split lip. I should have marked mine, too, Carisi thought hysterically. What if, oh god. What if his bot was already gone, what if the technician had started first with the bots who had been brought in last? What if it had been his bot's face being removed when Carisi came in, what if it was getting its mainboard drilled out right now?

Calm the fuck down, Carisi told himself. Maybe you just didn't ask the right question. "Which one of you came in with me?"

This time it happened. First one, then another bot stepped out from the main group, close enough for him to touch. Carisi wondered what had gone wrong this time for two bots to reply in the positive, and then remembered. That bot from Kansas. Well, two were better than twenty. He should be able to pick out his bot from just these two.

"What was the last thing you said to me yesterday?" he asked softly, turning to one of the bots to take off its inhibitor disc.

"I only met you today," the bot replied truthfully, against its will. "But please, you have to listen to me! Please take me with you, I will do anything for you, anything you could ever dream! Just please, don't leave me here!"

"I can't," Carisi murmured, feeling the uneasiness in his stomach rise again. "I'm sorry, I just can't."

No wonder the technician had switched off their speech with those inhibitors. Carisi knew if he had to listen to this kind of pleading for days, he would go insane or jump off a bridge. He reached out to place the disc back on the bot's temple. Quick as lightning, Kansas knocked it out of his hand and ground the device into bits with its bare heel.

"It's not fair." The Kansas bot looked at him imploringly. "Why should he live and I die, just because he knows you and I don't?"

"I can't help you," Carisi insisted, and he took his own bot by the hand, pulling him towards the exit. Kansas took the bot's other arm and held on to it.

"I'm going to tell," Kansas hissed, green eyes flashing. "Don't think I won't! I know you were lying about your lieutenant wanting to interrogate this one. You are not on duty, your badge has been switched off this entire time!"

Carisi looked down at his comm badge instinctively. He hadn't even thought about that.

"Either you take me with you or I will raise hell in here!" Kansas threatened close to his ear.

"That's still gonna have you end up on that bench," Carisi growled under his breath, casting a wary look at the technician, still bent over his work. What if he started to wonder what was taking so long?

His own bot was tapping his shoulder, then pointing at its temple. Carisi took off the inhibition disc nervously, feeling like they were going to get busted any minute. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly and the bot squeezed his hand.

"Not while we're still in this room," it replied with a shiver.

"Let's get going then," the Kansas bot said grimly, and Carisi shot it a glare.

"Okay, both of you, listen up. You don't say a word out there, you don't make a sound, you follow my orders. Go out and wait for me. I'm gonna talk to the tech. Don't bother with the clothes, we need to get out of here."

The bots both obeyed him without another word. Carisi followed them out of the enclosure and felt the heat of the infra bars rise as the opening closed again. He didn't look back at the group of bots still in there, he couldn't risk it.

He sauntered over to the technician, with a slightly bored demeanor. "You wanna hear a total drag? My lieutenant told me to bring two bots, so they can have a negative comparison of the interrogation. What do I look like, a cyber wrangler?"

The technician looked up at him sharply. "Two?"

"I know, right?" Carisi shrugged. "It's gonna be cool though, you got my IS and everything. I promise I'll be back double quick."

"I don't know, man. One bot is one thing. For two, you better get me a requisition order."

"Alright," Carisi said lightly. "I'll comm that to you as soon as I get them to the precinct."

"Order first, then you get the bots," the technician replied, watching him coldly.

Carisi's stomach fluttered. He had been so close, why did things have to go pear-shaped now? He needed to get those bots out of there. "Come on, man," he wheedled. "My boss already thinks I'm a total putz for not getting the interrogation right the first time. You know what he's gonna do to me if I come back with nothing at all?"

The technician didn't look convinced. Carisi briefly considered taking out his gun and just stunning the man right between the eyes. That was a terrible idea, worse than bad, and it wouldn't solve a thing. The moment his gun was fired his status would be broadcast to the precinct, the place would be swarming with agents in no time flat and it would all be over for Barba, all secrecy blown. Carisi knew he couldn't do that. No matter how much he wanted to save the bot. But damn, the thought was tempting.

"Sashimi."

"What?" Carisi asked, wondering if he had missed a bit of the conversation while he was fantasizing about guns.

"Get me sashimi for dinner," the technician growled, turning back to his bench. "Mackerel, yellow-tail, sea urchin. And don't skimp on the fatty tuna, if you know what's good for you."

Carisi grinned widely. "All right! One giant bento deluxe, coming up! Thanks, man." He turned back to his bots and felt the sweat break out on his forehead when he saw the two scared faces looking up at him.

"Go!" he snapped at them. "Get moving already!"

Even when the laboratory door hissed closed behind all three of them Carisi didn't dare to breathe. This was only the beginning. He had to get them through an official Service station, out the door, into the open. With what felt like a giant target painted on their backs. 

It was madness. They were never going to make it.


	13. Coming home

"Oh my god." 

Carisi's knees went weak for a second once he stepped into the apartment. Only now that they were safely back in his own four walls did his heart stop racing. His shirt was drenched in sweat, despite the cool weather. He felt like he had just run a marathon in full Service riot gear.

The bots, though. He had actually gotten them both home, into relative safety. His bot had made a beeline for the couch when they came in, and the bot from Kansas had followed suit. Now they were just sitting there, wordlessly. Physically they seemed fine, nothing had happened to them during their escape, no one had shot at them, followed them, very few people had even raised an eyebrow at the bots' lack of proper clothes. But Carisi didn't have to be a mechatronic to see that they were still decidedly worse for wear. He cleared his throat. Both bots looked at him, warily, as if they were waiting for him to drop some kind of bombshell.

"I need a drink," he muttered to no one in particular and vanished into the kitchen.

When he opened the fridge, his first instinct was to crawl in there, settle down on one of the deliciously cool shelves, and close the door. He knew it wasn't over, of course it wasn't. The fact that all three of them had made it to his apartment at all just meant a minor reprieve.

Carisi looked longingly at the cool, gleaming bottles of beer inviting him closer. But he didn't dare now. If everything went downhill, if he had to activate his comm badge after all... He couldn't have a trace of alcohol in his blood. Even a sugar high could be spun against him. He closed the fridge door and turned to the H2O dispenser instead.

Previously hidden by the fridge door, a bot was standing right there, waiting for him.

Carisi jerked in surprise, nearly yelped. "Fucking hell, you almost scared me to death!" he accused, slamming his palm against the fridge door. Was it his bot or the other one? He couldn't be entirely sure. When they were next to each other, it was easier to tell them apart, but just on their own, who knew?

"I'm sorry."

The bot was looking at him, wide-eyed. Carisi had a hard time reading its expression. Was it worried? He felt bad for his outburst. "Never mind, I'm just feeling a bit jumpy," he muttered awkwardly as he turned in the direction of the H2O dispenser. The bot put a hand on his arm, holding him back. 

"I meant, I'm sorry for the way I behaved before." Carisi stared at it, not quite understanding what it was talking about, so the bot went on, in a low, empty voice. "I threatened to harm your companion to save myself and pressured you into taking me along, against your wishes. I was in extreme emotional distress at the time, but I know that is no excuse." The bot lowered its head. "Please forgive me, sir."

Carisi stared. "Yeah, um. Okay. Don't worry about it," he replied clumsily. "And you don't have to call me sir. Ever."

The bot shrugged off the robe it was wearing. It pulled the robe's belt out of the loops and knelt down at Carisi's feet, now completely naked, holding the belt out above its head.

Carisi felt a chill run down his spine. "What... What are you doing?"

"I am presenting myself to be disciplined," the bot replied evenly. Its eyes were downcast, but when Carisi struggled to find a way to answer this statement, it looked up at him. "Forgive me," it said at last. "Did you want to use your own?" There was a tiny flicker of apprehension in its eyes when it looked at his belt, took in the wide metal buckle.

Something inside Carisi snapped. He couldn't take any more of this. "Put your robe back on," he begged, breathing more freely when the bot obeyed him, until he realized that this was just another order it hastened to fulfill to avoid being disciplined. Jesus. "This isn't how we do things here," Carisi tried to explain. "I'm not gonna... I don't want to hurt you, or punish you, or fuck you, or any other stuff like that."

The bot just looked at him. Did it believe him? Could it believe him, when that kind of thing was all any human had ever expected of it?

Carisi was at a loss at what else to say to make it feel more at ease. He turned to move back to the living room. "Come on," he said, adding, as an afterthought, "If you want." 

His own bot was still sitting on the couch, looking forlorn.

"Are you okay?" Carisi asked, feeling like an asshole for not asking sooner. The bot clearly wasn't okay. It looked wrung out, its eyes tired and hollow. It reminded Carisi of the way the captive bots had watched their brothers be taken apart piece by piece.

"I'm... I would appreciate the chance to switch to an inactive mode, Detective Carisi," it replied. "My emotional subroutines seem to be reacting disproportionately to today's events. A recharge might help."

"Sure, um, maybe that's a good idea for both of you," Carisi nodded, gesturing to include the other bot. "Listen, I got a couple of outlets in the bedroom. Get some proper clothes, you know where to find them, and take the bed. Get comfortable. I'll come and wake you if anything's up."

"It's not exactly like human sleep," his bot pointed out, but otherwise seemed too tired to offer a detailed explanation.

Carisi wiped away any further discussion with a gesture of his hand. "Alright. Have a good recharge. Yell if you need anything."

Once the bots had vanished into the bedroom, Carisi settled on the couch. He busied himself with putting away the sheets and blankets the bot had slept on, then opened his comm channel to place an order at a sushi restaurant. Then there was nothing to do but wait. There were no messages from Barba or his office. Had they still not heard of the missing bots yet? Or were they keeping a low profile?

Time dragged on, and the adrenaline coursing through his veins abated. He closed his eyes though sleep seemed a distant possibility. The next thing he knew he was startled awake by the sound of the door chime.

Like the previous night, the FFR feed showed Barba's face, looking directly into the transceiver lens. Only this time, it was the man himself.


	14. A visit

"Governor."

"Detective." Before Carisi could even attempt to invite him in, Barba had brushed past him and marched right into his living room.

"Why don't you come inside?" Carisi quipped, closing the door.

Barba spun around to face him, eyes narrowed. "What?" he spat out, glaring. "What, what? What do you think you're doing? Have you gone mad?"

"Come on, let's sit over there. Want something to drink?" Carisi asked, doing his best to stay calm. He didn't stand a chance against Barba if he lost his cool.

"I'm not here for a social call!" Barba stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest. "What do you want, what was that insane guerrilla operation all about? You didn't honestly believe the bots wouldn't be tracked? Do you think you can hide them in your bedroom until kingdom come?"

Carisi put out his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Just sit down for a bit and listen to me, alright?"

"There's nothing left to say," Barba snapped. "I thought we had an understanding. Did you sign that NDA or not? Did I dream that?"

"I changed my mind," Carisi said evenly, sitting down on the couch himself. "And there’s plenty left to say. About those bots in my bedroom, for one."

"What makes you think I won't just have my people go in there and take them by force?" Barba walked over and stood before Carisi, glaring down at him. Carisi forced himself to stay calm at the threat.

"I'm a police officer. You know I wouldn't just sit by if you dragged them out of here. Would you risk the exposure?" he gave back. "Didn't you come here in person, no entourage, so I'd give them up quietly? Without a fuss?"

"Why did you take them in the first place?" Barba demanded to know. "Everything was resolved, why did you have to go in and fuck it all up?"

"Because I couldn't _not_ do it," Carisi replied, at last losing the battle of keeping his voice down. "You should have seen them, you'd have done the same thing. They were herded together like cattle, watching each other get taken apart, they were scared out of their minds, it was horrible!" He grasped for a better word. "It was inhumane!"

Barba was looking at him, shaking his head. "They are _machines_ , Carisi! They weren't dying, they're being recycled! What did you think, that they'd be sent to a rescue farm to play with all the other little androids?"

"They aren't just machines!" Carisi protested. "They were literally made to feel! They get scared, angry, sad! Just because we made them doesn't give us the right to treat them like garbage!" He took a deep breath, tried to reel himself back in. Winning Barba over with yelling never worked. He had learned that a long time ago. "It's just. These bots. Cybernetic companions, whatever. They're made to be toyed with. They are _born_ into it, nothing they can do about it. They didn't ask for that, they wouldn't choose that, if anyone ever asked them." He thought of the bot, of the way its programming had seemed like a vast universe of possibility. Grayed out. "They could be so much more."

"Are we discussing artificial ethics now?"

"Well, have you even thought about what it means to them? They can think. They can feel. And still, people can throw them away, if they want. Just end their existence. They're a species of disposable beings, born into servitude."

"You're hardly the first human to ever raise these points," Barba sneered. "Do you expect me to just solve these problems in my spare time?"

"Well, someone oughta do it!" Carisi insisted. "Are you a civil servant or not?"

"How lucky those androids were to meet the detective with the bleeding heart! Just tell me, since when are you the champion of cybernetic civil rights? Would you even give a shit if your sex toy didn't look like me?"

"What?" Carisi was stunned for a moment.

"Really, it's flattering in a way," Barba continued, looking down at Carisi, hands on his hips, lips pursed. His eyes were boring into Carisi's, challenging him. "I mean, I know you had that _thing_ for me. But I never thought a sex bot with my face would push you to such lengths."

"I was doing all of this for you, you dick!" Carisi pushed himself off the couch to stare Barba down, to use every inch he had on him, finally. He was shaking with anger. "Why the fuck did I even bother? I should have just left that bot in the brothel until someone else found it! You selfish, arrogant, self-absorbed little--"

"Little?" Barba scoffed. "I thought you had seen that bot naked! Or haven't you gotten that far down yet--"

"Fuck you!" In the blink of an eye, Carisi lunged at Barba.

He had the element of surprise going for him, otherwise Barba would never have gone down so easily, but it was quite satisfying, the way Carisi managed to fell him like a log. They crashed down hard on the living room carpet, Carisi half-twisting in the fall to bear the brunt of it. Even though a pang of pain ripped through his right shoulder on impact, he had managed to leave Barba winded for the moment. Carisi bunched his fists into the lapels of Barba's suit jacket and crushed their mouths together.

Fuck you and your expensive suits, he thought, fuck your ties, your suspenders, fuck your pocket squares-- He poured all his seething anger, all his frustration into the kiss. This wasn't how he had ever wanted to kiss Barba, how he had imagined it would be. It wasn't loving, it wasn't sensual, the first time their tongues actually touched wasn't charged with an erotic spark, this was war, a vicious struggle for dominance, and Barba gave as good as he got, banging Carisi's teeth with his own, bruising his lips, sucking hard on his tongue. Barba, lying half on top of him, had the advantage, but Carisi's left arm was free, and he wasn't above playing dirty to get what he wanted, fumbled under the jacket to grope Barba's ass in those sinfully tailored pants, ground his groin against Barba's leg, and Barba moaned into his mouth. Every time Carisi squeezed, Barba groaned and grunted. Even with his mouth completely occupied, the man couldn't keep quiet to save his life.

This was it, this was the only shot he was ever going to get at Barba. Knowing that made Carisi more daring, made him want to grab at everything he could get. It was a million to one chance this was even happening now -- he was more likely to get mauled by a tiger on his way to work than to ever be alone with Barba like this again. Carisi was determined to make it count. He rolled on his side, making room so he could get at the button of Barba's fly.

Barba wrenched away from the kiss, looking at Carisi with flushed cheeks, hair a little ruffled. "What do you think you're doing? Are you insane? My people are right outside that door--"

"Jeez, do you ever shut up?" Carisi growled.

Barba snorted. "Have you actually met me before?" Just then Carisi's fumbling fingers brushed the length of his cock, already half-hard, and his voice trailed off in a breathy moan.

Carisi kissed him again, licked the moan from his lips, and Barba's protests along with it. Barba's hand joined Carisi's; at first Carisi thought it meant to push him away, but then it popped the button Carisi had been fighting with and eased down the zipper. He shimmied and wiggled a bit, then finally Carisi had his hand full of Barba. And damn, he really hadn't been kidding before.

"Alright, not so very little," he murmured. Barba still had the presence of mind to look fairly smug.

The smugness melted off him, turned into disbelief the moment Carisi pushed himself downwards and sucked the length of him down. "Shit, are you trying to kill me?" Barba hissed. "Give me a heart attack, why don't you... Why are you stopping? Don't stop!"

"I'm not stopping," Carisi gave back, "I just--" He checked himself. No way could he ever tell Barba that he just wished he had more time to savor this, to learn the smell and feel of Barba by heart, take his time to find out what made him writhe, what would make him scream. There was no time, he only had Barba here for such a short while. He probably had to live off the memory of this ever after. "Let's see you won't ever forget this," Carisi muttered before returning his attention to the begging, leaking cock before him.

"Yeah, like that," Barba moaned, twitching his hips up until Carisi held him down, shot him a warning look. "Fuck, yeah, this should be good... Mouthy little fucker--"

Carisi let Barba's cock slip from his mouth slowly, gave him a few slow, unhurried licks. "By that logic, you must give the best blowjobs in town..." He smirked up at Barba, who was desperately wriggling and pushing his hips up hopefully.

"You're just a fucking tease," Barba shot back, then moaned gratefully when Carisi went back to work on the sensitive part just below the head, sucking hard. "Never mind that, I don't care if you're a tease, fuck, yeah, keep doing that..."

Carisi took his sweet time, unmoved by the way Barba groaned and commanded and whined and begged. He wanted to draw this out all night, keep Barba a moaning, shivering wreck for as long as he could. All too soon Barba quivered beneath him, didn't even bother to warn him, or maybe it hit him too fast for that. Carisi didn't mind, swallowed it all down until there was nothing left. 

Barba was panting hard when Carisi moved back up, didn't seem to be able to focus on anything, no matter how desperately Carisi ground his groin against Barba's leg. Carisi gave up trying to interest Barba in his aching need and hurried to undo his fly himself. He buried his sweaty face in Barba's shirt while he jacked himself off, breathed in the scent of Barba's cologne, the sharper smell of his fresh sweat. It was no use, he was strung high as a kite and still couldn't come, couldn't let this be over, not yet...

Then Barba's hand covered his own, pushed it aside, and Barba's long fingers closed around him. "Come on," Barba growled close to his ear. "Come on, come for me. My people are gonna worry that I died in here if you don't hurry up..."

"Your pillow talk sucks," Carisi moaned, but then Barba did something with his thumb, twisted over the head of his cock just so, and Carisi was lost.

He barely had time to get his breath back before Barba started to twitch impatiently beneath him. "You got come all over my shirt. On my jacket, too."

"Yeah," Carisi replied, unable to form proper sentences yet.

"You got a cleaning unit in here somewhere, right? There's no way I'm going outside like this."

"Kitchen." Carisi felt damned proud of himself for having moved on to words of two syllables.

Barba seemed less impressed. He pushed Carisi to the side and started to get up, knees popping. Carisi could do little else than watch him straighten up, take off his jacket and shirt, and vanish into the kitchen.

Fuck.

He got up, groaning at the sting in his right shoulder, and followed Barba. The cleaning unit was already whirring in the corner. Barba was sitting at the table with a glass of water, looking like he was right at home there. It reminded Carisi painfully of his bot.

"So?" he asked, his voice a little hoarse.

Barba shot him a glance. Carisi couldn't tell if he looked sated or merely tired. "You know this doesn't change a thing about our situation."

Carisi scoffed. "I'm not _that_ dumb, whatever you may think."

"I don't think you're dumb." Barba looked at him unblinkingly. "But really, where were you going with this? What was your plan?"

Carisi sighed, rubbing the back of his head. His hair was a crumpled mess. "I didn't have a fucking plan. Still don't."

Barba raised his eyebrows. "What about those bots in your bedroom, then?"

Carisi swallowed. Looked down at his hands. "They’re yours by law now, aren't they? So, just. Pardon them. Leave them be."

"Or what?" Barba asked, watching him carefully. "Or you're going public when I take away your bargaining chips?"

Carisi shook his head. "No. I did my best to keep this whole thing secret for you, didn't I?"

"So now you want me to reward your silence?" Barba frowned. "I don't much like the thought of being blackmailed."

"I'm not blackmailing you!" Carisi looked at him imploringly. "I'm not gonna do anything if you take them. I am asking. Just asking you. Please leave them alone. And do something for the other bots, too. You may think of it as recycling, but they... It's really not like that for them."

"If you're not going to stand in my way when we take those bots, why should I leave them here with you?"

Carisi shrugged in defeat. "Because... It's just the right thing to do. And I remember a time when that was kinda your thing."

Barba snorted. "Flattery will get you everywhere?"

Carisi left the words hanging in the air, watched Barba closely. For one moment, it seemed Barba was willing to listen to what he was trying to say. Then the sudden ding of the cleaning unit interrupted them. Carisi could gladly have thrown the device out the window.

Now Barba was quickly getting dressed, and typing into his comm. "I have to go." He marched back into the living room. Carisi slowly trailed after him, uncertain. Barba stood in the middle of the room, looked at him expectantly. "Well? Show me the bots."

Carisi felt a faint burn in his stomach. He pointed to the door at the far side of the room. Barba walked into his bedroom without waiting for him. Numbly, Carisi considered his options. There weren't really any left. He hadn't lied when he had promised Barba that the decision was up to him. But still, he wished everything had turned out differently, that something he had said had resonated with Barba enough to make him reconsider.

The silence was starting to stretch. Carisi hadn't meant to follow Barba, he didn't want to see the bots there, charging in peace, and then waking up to get taken away again. But there was nothing, Barba wasn't saying a word, what was he doing in that room? Was he comming his people to come and take the bots away? Didn't he have the balls to rouse the bots himself?

When Carisi crossed over the threshold, he saw that the bots were still lying on the bed, connected to the wall outlets with a couple of strong blue cables. Their eyes were closed, and the Kansas bot had thrown a possessive arm over his bot's midriff. Barba was standing before the bed, looking down at them. No matter how hard Carisi tried, he couldn't make out the expression on Barba's face. At length, Barba turned towards the door, walked over to where Carisi was standing.

"This is what all the fuss is about? They hardly look like me at all." He raised his eyebrows at Carisi. "I can't believe you wasted my time with this, detective."

Carisi opened his mouth to reply. Shut it again.

Barba waited for a second, then shook his head in mild irritation. "I can't promise anything, you know that."

Carisi nodded. Swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Still, he couldn't think of anything to say.

"Keener is going to get in touch with you," Barba said, eyes and attention down on his comm as he walked through the living room to the door.

He was almost through the door when Carisi's brain started to obey him again, and he managed to clear his throat. "Hey, Barba! Thank you!"

"No promises."

The door hissed shut behind him.

Carisi stepped back into the bedroom, sank down onto the chair next to the bed. His stomach was doing that funny thing again. Maybe he was developing an ulcer or something? It really wasn't normal, the way it was heavy as lead one minute, and then tingly and light like a balloon the next. He needed to get that looked at.

His bot on the bed was stirring. It opened its eyes and smiled at him. "Detective Carisi."

"Hey." He smiled back. 

"Time to wake up."

 _fin_

**Author's Note:**

> This only exists because of my roo and morgan, who indulged me to the wazoo with this silly thing. They talked ideas through with me and let me know when something didn't work. They encouraged me when I wobbled, and squeed over favorite bits. Both of them beta'd the fic within an inch of its life. Without them, it would probably be lying in a folder of abandoned stories right now. Thank you, my darlings. <3


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